New York -- Meeting the Millennium Development
Goals, particularly the most urgent one - to reduce the proportion of
hungry people in the world by half by 2015 - requires not just shared
vision and commitment but shared action on the ground.

In the first year of an exciting initiative
funded mainly by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard
G. Buffett Foundation, 42,000 smallholder farmers all over the world have
been involved in selling food to WFP through the 'Purchase For Progress'
pilot programme.

BAMAKO -- Faso Jigi, a federation
of farmers' associations in Mali, scored a first this year. Its 2,500 members
were finally able to participate and win a tender to sell 600 metric tons
(MT) of cereals to WFP.

"This year the sale was quick, they
paid us promptly and we made a good profit.